


Mutually Abusive and Dangerously Co-Dependent

by InkBlackFingers



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Post- season 2, Reunions, Suicide mention, and anything after it, basically a character study, but fluff too, mentions of depression, not actually abuse no matter what the title says, outright ignores Season 3, therapy sessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 16:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12610400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkBlackFingers/pseuds/InkBlackFingers
Summary: It's two years after Sherlock fell, and John is dealing with it. He's doing fine except that he's really not.John works through some of his feelings about Sherlock Holmes and the fall with his therapist and does a lot of not-talking.Partly character study, part therapy session.





	Mutually Abusive and Dangerously Co-Dependent

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I'm alive and still writing. Thanks for continuing to read my fics even though it's been ...over a year since I've updated anything. I'm doing 30 oneshots in 30 days for Nano, in the hopes that I'll start getting through all of the fic that I've got written but never published. For right now, I'm keeping everything on Ao3 to make things easier for me, but I will update stuff on ff.net at the end of the month. Thanks :)

It's been a few months since John started seeing Ella again, and each visit has started out the same way. John sits stiffly in his chair, refusing to let his back sag into the soft cushions. His hands are clenched tightly, knuckles shining white around the handle of his cane. Ella sits across from him, the exact opposite of his posture in every way, her notepad carefully tilted away from his view. 

It doesn't matter; John hasn't cared about what's she writes about him for a while now. He stares at the floor, waiting for her to start. 

"Hello John, how have you been?"

"Okay," he doesn't elaborate. Ella starts off with the same question she's asked countless times before.

"How would you describe your relationship with Sherlock Holmes?"

He clears his throat, his voice rusty,"We started out as flatmates." John pauses, "then we became occasional colleagues. Friends before long." He wants to say more, but the words get caught in his throat.

He doesn't say mutually abusive and dangerously codependent, which is definitely what she thinks (and probably most of the police force too). She doesn't know the whole story, and at this point, John's not even sure he knows what happened in the short time he knew Sherlock. It's not a wholly untrue conclusion to come to, especially when given only some of the facts.

She sees the bruise-dark circles under his eyes, the tremor in his hands, the reappearance of his cane. The officers see the man who used to yell back at them in the middle of a crime scene, who managed to make Sherlock behave when he consulted with them, who needed a shock blanket after they responded to the call about a suicide. There's something integral missing from John without Sherlock and that's all that anybody sees now.

_Complicated_ , he thinks, but doesn't say. He doesn't mention the brawls they would get into- the ones that John would instigate when he saw that Sherlock was getting too antsy without a case, the ones that Sherlock would goad John into after a particularly bad day- that would leave the flat a mess and leave both of them messes of bruises. He tries not to remember the nights that they'd cling to each other after one of them had a nightmare. He remembers the nights that he couldn't sleep because Sherlock would murder his violin at 3 AM in the morning, because he wanted so badly to smoke just _one_ cigarette or because he _needed it to solve the case, John, it's an integral part of my process_. He doesn't mention the nights that Sherlock would play him to sleep with whatever songs he requested because John couldn't close his eyes without going back to Afghanistan. Sherlock would ignore his thanks in the morning, telling John that "I have no clue what you're talking about. I wasn't even in the flat last night," simultaneously checking that he had slept well. 

He doesn't say best friends, because that's too trite a word for what they are. He doesn't tell her that he thinks that Sherlock was the only person he's ever been truly in love with.

After a long silence from John, she continues. 

She asks, pen poised, "What are your nightmares about?" 

"Afghanistan," he croaks out.

She waits patiently.

"The fall," he whispers, dropping back into his memories once again.

_Sky-blue that burned into the back of your eyelids, sun-bleached white that looked like exposed bone, the desert-sand brown that everything eventually became, blood-matted black curls that shouldn't be weighted down, pale sightless eyes without the spark that usually lit them, crimson-streaked blue wool that looked far too much like a hangman's noose,_ John thought.

"John, I can't help you if you don't let me," she pleaded.

_Can you?_ John thought

Ella didn't understand - could never understand.

They're too tangled together, had ceased to be two separate people long ago. Two equally shattered people that collapsed into each other to create something that was so much more than the sum of their parts. The boundaries between them had been blurred from the very beginning, and had completely disappeared in a way that John had never experienced with any of his previous partners and Sherlock had never experienced at all. They weren't Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, but Sherlock-and-John and Holmes-and-Watson. 

How could he begin to explain what Sherlock was to him when he didn't know the words to do so?

He doesn't bother telling Ella this either; she'd just take it as another sign of his extreme dependence on a man who'd tried to convince him he was lying and made him listen as he stepped off of a ledge. Her sessions are helping him work through his grief, but he had to keep some things private.

He was never going to tell Harry; he's not letting her ruin this part of this life too. She'd left a voicemail about a week after the newspapers ran the story, already well past tipsy, slurring "Johnny, John, I'm sorry, I really am, but-" there was the sound of glass breaking"- don't let this be why you start drinking." John wasn't ready to call her back, but he didn't delete the voicemail.

He didn't tell Lestrade or Mrs. Hudson because they care about 'their boys' too much, and besides, they probably already knew. Both of them were too worried about him and too involved with everything anyways.

He didn't tell Mycroft (or not-Anthea), although they had known that the British Government and his nameless assistant knew about them when they received a CCTV still of them holding hands and a note that said "Congratulations." Sherlock had torn the picture up into shreds and then lit them on fire and refused the next three cases from his brother. John kept the note.

He never told Sherlock (but he wishes he had), but he had planned on having forever to try and get the words out -even though he know they'd be greeted with a drawled, "of course John, that was obvious."

Instead, he's left with a recording of Sherlock trying to convince John he's a fake and a black marble headstone and prying tabloid reporters and looks of sympathy and his grief.

He would have gladly taken back his place at the right hand side of a dead man, but he knows that there are still people who care about him, so he tries, for their sake.

He handed over his gun to Lestrade when he asks for it with a concerned look on his face and puts up with Mrs. Hudson's visits "just to check in, dearie," and her daily deliveries of biscuits and tea, not even bothering with the pretense of saying "not your housekeeper." He goes to his therapy sessions like a good little army doctor and pretends he doesn't notice the CCTV cameras swiveling to follow him on his weekly trips to Tescos or the black car that follows him to the clinic and back.

He ignores the gaping hole in his heart that comes from forgetting for _just one moment_ and making two cups of tea and putting too much sugar in one of them or from waking up in the middle of the night and seeing the empty sheets on the other side of the bed or from the flat not smelling like a chemical cocktail or opening the fridge and seeing only food in it.

He never thought that he'd be sad that there weren't science experiments in the dining room or when he woken up by his alarm clock instead of gunshots.

He pretends he doesn't see the yellow spraypaint on alley walls, how it matches the color on the walls of Baker Street, and ignores every headline in the newspapers- especially if it's an article written by Kitty Riley.

(He also doesn't ask any questions when her writings disappear entirely about a month *after*.)

John's not doing great, but he's doing okay, and sometimes he can even convince himself that he's fine. He pours the second cup of tea down the sink, and moves back into his old room (even if he struggles to get up all of the stairs with his cane) and smiles and goes through the motions to reassure anyone who's watching. 

He pretends a lot. He pretends that there isn't an empty space in 221B Baker Street, and he pretends that he doesn't think about Sherlock and he pretends that everything is all right.

Of course, all of his compartmentalizing goes to hell when the owner of the black curls and shrewd pale gaze- who is apparently very much *not-dead* -walks into Baker Street when Mrs. Hudson is out.

The first thing that John does after Sherlock walks back into Baker Street -two hours after John pleaded over his headstone, two years after his fall- is pour himself a large glass of brandy and drink it. He hasn't drank alcohol for nearly two years, but the burn going down his throat reminds him that he's awake and not dreaming.

The second thing he does is to punch Sherlock right across the face in nearly the exact same place he did right before they went to see Adler. Irene was right after all; even now, when he's completely furious at him, he avoids his nose and teeth.

The third thing he does is grab Sherlock before he can fall down from the punch and hold him tightly enough that he can feel his pulse. Eventually the roaring in his ears subsides and he can hear that Sherlock had apparently been talking the entire time.

"John, I'm sorry, I didn't mean for it to take so long, I never-"

"Shut up, Sherlock," he managed to say with his face buried in Sherlock's chest, "shut up until I'm sure I'm not imagining this."

He can feel the rumbles in his chest as Sherlock chuckles lowly. Later, he'll start worrying about the new scars that he can feel, will yell at Sherlock for pretending he was dead for two years even as he feeds him until his ribs aren't visible anymore. Right now, all he feels is relief.

It's not okay and it's not fine, and it won't be for a while, but it's at least a start. 


End file.
